Does Homelander have a mental illness in ‘The Boys’?

We’re a little bit over a month away from the Season 4 premiere of The Boys, available exclusively on Prime Video. For five years now, the show has given us hilarious writing that satirizes the kind of society we are all facing right now in the world. The only thing different is that there’s superheroes in The Boys. Besides that, it’s a big mirror up to the age of cancel culture, the internet, and billion-dollar corporations that make the decisions that affect all of us.

At the center of all of that is the character Homelander. An argument can be made that in the era of Trump, far right wing fantics, toxic masculinity, and trying to figure out what this version of America really is, actor Anthony Starr has given us a performance as a character that gives us what would happen to a Superman-esque character if he were real and around in 2024.

Homelander is the leader of The Seven. The team of superheroes, who live a very public life and are presented to the people of the world like celebrities rather than every-day heroes with special gifts, presents Homelander as the hero we all need, but right behind that facade is a deeply troubled being that yearns for admiration while also having spates of self-loathing. He’s a narcissist with a personality disorder that should have labeled him unfit for the position in the world that he is in.

In tales of caped crusaders who save the day, even during hardship, heroes still have a moral code to follow that brings things back to center for them. Homelander lacks that due to his lack of human empathy and moral reservation.

As with every season of The Boys, there seems to be a deeper dive into the psyche of Homelander. There are beats throughout every season that show what an awful person he is willing to become. As the show has progressed, Homelander has become an internet meme, which, if anything, signifies that we oddly identify with some of his emotional states. Let’s just hope we don’t let those intrusive thoughts win.

The scene of him sitting in a theater surrounded by many while the faint sound of white noise echoes throughout it, signifying what’s on his mind and that Homelander is an emotionless sociopath, has been re-used all over Instagram reels over the last few years. Another one is the somewhat relieved Homelander laughing scene where he shoots lasers out of his eyes to level a protestor and still keeps the crowd on his side.

To go a step further, The Boys creator Erick Kripke has gone on record as saying Homelander has dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. “He hates that he has feelings, and he hates that he is a human being,” Kripke stated. “If he embraced that part of him more, he might be a happier person who isn’t going to destroy the planet.”

The Boys is a show that has picked up steam with every season, outdoing the one prior. By season 3, it has become clear where the direction of Homelander may go; it is time for a complete mental breakdown. The kind of life the character has, with all the problems that go along with it, is eventually going to crash and burn. The buildup of the mixed bag of emotions he carries, while also finding the opportunity to be an emotionless killing machine, is eventually going to reach its tipping point. We’ll see on June 13th, 2024 if season 4 is that season where we bear witness to it.